Crash Into Me (20 page)

“Tell
him what?” he asked, darting a glance Sonny’s way.

You
son of a bitch,
Sonny responded with her eyes.

“About
the pot.” Carly tilted her head toward the officer, as if preparing to divulge
all. “He caught us smoking a joint in my room. Totally freaked out about it, of
course. I’m still grounded.”

The
officer looked to Ben for confirmation.

“Teenagers,”
he said with a charming shrug that may or may not have been an admission.

To
his credit, the cop wasn’t fooled. “Mr. Fortune, a girl is missing. If you have
some information to share, I would recommend you do it now.”

Ben’s
eyes narrowed, but he didn’t say anything more. Sonny realized that he hadn’t
answered a single question directly, and that he knew exactly what he was
doing. He’d been through an exhausting round of interrogations in the days
after his wife’s death, an experience that must have had a profound effect on
him. He was now a man who guarded his family, his privacy, and his words. He
also understood the system. After all, his father was a retired criminal court
judge, and his brother a public defender.

“Did
you confiscate the marijuana?” the officer continued.

“There
wasn’t much left to confiscate, but yeah.”

“What
did you do with it?”

“I
got rid of it,” Ben said in a defensive tone.

Carly
leaned back and crossed her arms over her chest, adopting Ben’s uncooperative
attitude and presenting a united front.

The
cop gave up on the drug angle. In Torrey Pines, smoking weed was more of a
revered local pastime than a crime. “Tell me what she said or did last. Her
attitude before she left. Anything that might help us find her.”

“I
don’t remember anything but falling asleep,” Carly said, twirling a lock of
hair around her slender finger. “We were, like, totally stoned, you know?”

“Mr.
Fortune, did it ever occur to you to notify Lisette’s parents that she left
early?”

“No.”
He glanced at his daughter. “Carly didn’t mention that she was missing.”

Carly
tossed her hair back with dramatic flourish. “I didn’t know she was, like,
missing
missing. I thought she was just out having a good time. Maybe trying to dodge
getting put on restriction.”

She
was laying on the Valley Girl routine a little too thick, but the cop only
nodded, as if he also suspected Lisette Bruebaker would turn up on her own.
Before he left, he focused his attention on Sonny, surprising her. “By the way,
ma’am, can I ask how you got that busted lip?”

Behind
his back, Carly’s eyes widened with panic, and she shook her head pleadingly.

Sonny
pasted a smile on her face, hoping it wouldn’t crack under the strain. There
was no time to consider her decision, so she just went with it, up-ping the
total of liars in the room from two to three. “Carly did it. Kitchen cabinet.”
She made a motion with her hand, like a door hitting her in the mouth. “An
accident.”

He
tapped his pen against the notebook in his hands. “Well, thank you for your
time.”

After
the door closed behind him, the three of them stared at one another. Ben broke
the silence. “I should call Lisette’s mom. See if she needs anything.”

As
he left the room, Sonny crossed her arms over her chest, waiting for Carly to
do some serious explaining.

“Thanks
for not mentioning James.”

“Is
he in trouble?”

Carly
didn’t meet her eyes. “Not that I know of. But he’s kind of weird about us,
won’t tell his dad and stuff. If the cops showed up at his house, his dad might
freak out on him.”

Sonny
nodded, flexing her hands. She had a plan now, and it didn’t include a morning
jog. Although a physical release, in lieu of beating Ben senseless, might be in
order. “You still want to run?”

Carly
nodded. “Yeah. But I think I’ll go on my own, if you don’t mind. Sometimes I
just need to get out, go fast, be free. You know?”

She
knew.

In the kitchen, Ben hung up the phone
quietly, his back to her. Carly could be seen from the west-facing window,
already halfway down the beach, her hair flying out behind her like a wild
Arabian’s.

“They’re
organizing a search party,” he said. “Some of the other parents are meeting
over there at noon.”

His
expression was severe, the perfect portrait of a concerned father with his own
teenaged daughter to worry about. Underneath all of that was guilt. Even if
Sonny could pretend nothing was amiss for the sake of the investigation, it
wouldn’t ring true to her character. Summer Moore may not be a hard-eyed cynic
like Sonora Vasquez, but she was nobody’s fool. “What did you do?”

He
smoothed his hand over the black granite countertop, looking down at it,
instead of at her. “Nothing.”

“Don’t
lie to me.” She moved closer, forcing him to face her. “Please don’t lie.”

He
met her eyes. “What are you asking me?”

Sonny
considered that question carefully. “If you slept with her.”

He
started to speak, then appeared to think better of it, and remained silent.

It
hurt, so much more than she thought it would. So much more than she should have
allowed it to. Because she’d known the instant he’d gone along with Carly’s
story that the lie had been one of omission. He’d caught Lisette and Carly
smoking pot two Saturdays ago, not last Friday.

So what
had actually happened when Lisette spent the night? She gave herself three
guesses, and the first two didn’t count.

“I’m
going surfing,” he said, walking outside. He may as well have added, “Fuck
you.”

Shaking
with fury, Sonny followed him to the poolroom. It was as posh as the rest of
the house, with its designer shower stalls, custom surfing gear, and built-in
sauna. When she came through the open door, he was tugging on his
state-of-the-art, titanium-lined wetsuit. It fit him like a second skin.

She had
to take a moment to calm down before she was able to speak. “You told me you
hadn’t been with anyone since Olivia.”

He
pulled a surfboard down from the rack, his movements swift with anger. “Don’t
ever”—his eyes were intense, his tone vehement—“talk about my wife.”

Sonny
didn’t bother to heed that warning, although it cut through her deeper than the
phantom blade from her nightmare. “What did she do when you cheated on her,
Ben? Look the other way?”

A
muscle in his jaw ticked. “Don’t compare yourself to her. Do you think I owe
you my loyalty because I’ve tried to fuck you a few times?”

She
felt the color drain from her face. “You owe me an explanation.”

“I
don’t owe you a fucking thing.” He brushed by her, crossing the patio and
making his way down the winding steps to the beach.

She
wanted to shout obscenities at him, to push him down the stairs and pummel him
with her fists, to scream and yell and smash his handsome, arrogant face.

Instead,
she turned her back on him.

In
his tumultuous emotional state, Ben hadn’t bothered to lock his door or engage
the security system, and she was going to take full advantage of it. Don’t get
mad, she reminded herself. Get evidence.

Hands
trembling, imagination running overdrive, Sonny returned to the kitchen and
threw open drawers until she found what she needed. Ziploc bags. Hopefully his
bed would have the same sheets from Friday, the night Lisette stayed over.

Sprinting
up the steps, taking two at a time, she entered Ben’s room, bypassing the bed
and going straight to the master bath. The trash can was empty. Neat freak, she
cursed silently. Storming out, she raided the nightstand by the bed, looking
for condoms. There was one box, brand new, unopened.

“Thought
you were going to get lucky with me, didn’t you? Arrogant bastard.”

Moving
quickly, she looked through every drawer, rifling through silk ties and cotton
boxer shorts, running her fingertips over stacks of T-shirts and neatly folded
jeans. She slid her hands underneath the mattress, got down on her hands and
knees to look under furniture, stood on tiptoe in his walk-in closet.

There
was nothing. Not even a speck of dust.

She
picked up the remote for the plasma screen TV and did a quick channel search.
Nothing more titillating than HBO. Sonny wasn’t a tech whiz, but she knew how
to find out if he’d ordered any pay-per-view movies or kept DVDs on file.

There
was only one title; the date, September 17th. She played it.

“Jesus,”
she muttered, sitting down on the edge of the bed. She suffered through the
wedding video only long enough to acknowledge that Olivia had been her polar
opposite. Tall, dark-haired, and gorgeous, she was lushly feminine, a more
womanly version of Carly. The only thing more painful to witness was the look
on Ben’s face as she walked down the aisle.

Perhaps
he was a pathetic cliché, the sainted widower who watched his wife
instead of porn.

Then
again, lonely people often acted in desperation.

Sonny
flipped off the TV with a twist of her wrist, wanting to throw the remote
through the damned screen. Returning to the bathroom, she searched the medicine
cabinet for tweezers. Finding a new pair, she ripped it out of the package,
then stripped the blanket and top sheet off the bed.

There
were no stains, but the expensive white cotton appeared wrinkled, comfortable,
slept in. Apparently, he wasn’t so fastidious that he changed sheets more than
once a week. Or even after entertaining a female guest.

There
was one long, curly hair, obviously a woman’s, probably Lisette’s. The sight of
it made her heart sink.

He
wasn’t a saint after all, was he?

“You
fucked up, Ben,” she said under her breath, collecting the hair meticulously
before she began to go over every inch of the sheets for more trace.

Ben wasted a perfectly good session, too
distracted to keep his mind on waves. The sport required a Zen-like
concentration, and he didn’t have it. He was pissed off at Summer, pissed off
at himself, and extremely pissed off at the decent-looking break that kept
crumbling to mush every time he got into position.

“Fuck!”
he yelled as he resurfaced, startling a couple of regulars who were communing
with the surf gods in companionable silence.

Ben
gave up. Flipping his wet hair off his forehead, he waded out of the ocean,
shoving his surfboard under one arm and storming across the beach.

He
couldn’t believe Summer thought he’d slept with Lisette. The girl was young
enough to be his daughter, for Christ’s sake. The very idea turned his stomach.

Her
interrogation wasn’t just insulting, it also brought back a lot of unpleasant
memories for him. Olivia had constantly bombarded him with accusations.
Usually, her suspicions were correct, and she had every right to be jealous.
While she’d stayed home taking care of Carly, he’d been traveling from one
beach to the next, hopping from party to party and bed to bed.

Olivia
hadn’t put up with his antics for long. She broke off their relationship just
before Carly’s second birthday, issuing the ultimatum that he give up drugs,
alcohol, and other women. It took him five years to honor her request.

He
regretted every one of them.

After
he got clean, he hadn’t so much as looked at another woman, but Olivia had
never really trusted him because he’d lied to her so many times in the past.

Ben
didn’t need Summer giving him the third degree, thinking the worst of him,
reminding him of his myriad failures as a husband and a man.

He
did a good enough job of that on his own.

Scowling,
he ascended the wooden steps leading to his back patio, assuring himself he was
only sorry he hadn’t been able to get her into bed. He knew he was lying, and
that he’d handled things badly with her this morning, but damned if he would
apologize to her, when she was the one who’d accused him of statutory rape!

Muttering
a string of curses, he showered off in the poolroom and pulled on some clothes
before he headed inside the house. Carly was sitting at the kitchen table with
a pensive expression on her face and dark sunglasses covering her eyes.

Ben
cleared his throat. “Ready?”

“Yeah.”

He
drove them to the Bruebaker residence in silence. As he parked inside the gated
entrance, he noted that the media was out in full force. Although he would have
used his notoriety to draw attention to Lisette’s disappearance, her parents
hadn’t asked him to, and for that he was grateful.

After
Olivia’s murder, the press had hounded him mercilessly. The police had treated
him like a criminal. While he’d been in shock, unable to process what was
happening, they’d ripped his reputation to shreds and thrown it to the sharks.